Straight Talk in a Crooked World

Sunday, January 20th, 2019 was a super moon (close to the earth), blood moon (lunar eclipse), and wolf moon, the first full moon of January. Here in the greater Seattle area we weren’t sure if we’d be able to see this phenomenon or not thanks to wide rafts of clouds that teased us all day.

When 7:30 rolled around, to our delight and amazement we could actually see a shadow beginning to crawl across the lower left quarter of the moon. This prompted numerous brave souls to bundle up like mountaineers and race to hilltops, docks, and fields to bask in the angry red glow that devoured our faithful satellite.

It was cold out and trying to figure out a new tripod in the dark on a platform rattled by others’ footsteps meant far more misses than hits. I changed locations late in the eclipse, braced against a cedar in near darkness, hoping for just that one photo that would make sitting in the 40-degree weather for two hours (and tripping over a large rock) worth it.

Upon closer examination, I didn’t take a bunch of great photos, but instead discovered curious faces and creatures among the attempts.

In this first photo, you can see a dollop of vanilla on top of the creeping orange sherbet, like a fiery Pac-Man closing his mouth in slow motion as he screams across the galaxy.

One of the first decent closeups as the moon disappears from the sky.

Another view of the great vanishing moon act.

I tried to get more of the orange back into the photo… I do think it’s smiling in that first photo (cheese!). Besides the happy clown face, you might also see a bearded man with sunglasses.

And then it blew up. Not sure how this happened…

I seem to have the beginnings of an awesome retro album cover in this case.

Finally… luna as she is meant to be seen on this night.

And then some galactic colossus snatches the celestial basketball from the heavens for a slam dunk. Do you see the hand?

Am I staring at Mercury or the moon?

Here a dragon curls itself around the moon as if to claim the dim orb as its own.

Next a bearded giant heaves the moon upon his right shoulder and starts to carry it off.

You can see his profile clearly. My first reaction was “moon dude!”

Clicking onward, I inadvertently discovered these Pictish beasts. You might also see several faces including the moon’s exactly as he appears in Victorian nursery rhymes. Or Richard III’s.

Planet Vulcan??!

Aha, finally. I found the wolf. Do you see him howling? This was, after all, a wolf moon. It was about time.

The contrast of colors as the shadow slithered off the moon was even sharper through the trees.

WATT is happening here? It looks like I stumbled upon a cross between Jabba the Hutt, a pre-reveal Mr. Voltner in Scooby Doo, and Mothra. Don’t see it? Check out the rotated version in the second photo.

Perhaps I caught the luminous wings of an angel.

God must have had so much fun making all of this.

We won’t see another lunar eclipse until at least 2021. In the meantime, embrace the imperfect images that might turn up on your camera. Sometimes you can see far deeper into those than the photos you expected to get.

If you have survived abuse, you’ll likely remember many times that your abuser tried to make you feel unstable, unworthy, crazy, and weak. While nowadays this is commonly referred to as crazymaking, it is also called gaslighting.

The term gaslighting comes from the 1940 British movie of the same name. While the abuser in the movie had a material motive for his behavior, most use gaslighting as a means of maintaining power and control in general.

The movie Gaslight is the American version of Gaslighting that came out in 1944. Viewers have historically been split as to which is the better movie, but both are worth a few hours of your time.

Knowing the tactics abusive people use is critical to helping their targets to safety. As I’ve long said, initiative, intelligence, and insight is threatening to the immoral and insecure. Let’s continue to shine a light on the behaviors of sadistic and narcissistic people and know their head games even better than they do.

Today a coworker told me about the Barbie Zombie Apocalypse House in Kirkland. I don’t care much for the undead part of Halloween but often use “zombie apocalypse” as an example of how humans might function in a crisis. People are being turned against each other by politicians at a time when we need to be standing united, meaning that if we have an earthquake, EMP, or other emergency, I’m not confident we’ll help each other survive. The book One Second After delves into this psychology.

Turn on some accompanying epic movie music, and you’ll surely feel the emotion of these bedraggled souls rushing down towards their hapless prisoner.

Each character showcases a different kind of compulsion, confusion, or torment.

It appears the Mattel posse has already deprived their captive of its flesh. At the time, I laughed because it was so absurd. But the more I’ve talked about it, I wondered if this was a spontaneous parent-child project, or a statement by a deep soul about our society?

There are so many places this commentary could go. Are these wayward folks running towards a false god? An example of group think? GMOs gone wrong? Politically, are we forming gangs to devour our fellow citizens instead of finding common ground and working together? Is this what we are becoming, a species that is regressing instead of progressing, turning on each other instead of building each other up, trading beauty and benevolence for blood and brains?

Part Gulliver’s Travels, part pirate ship… is this what we are doing to our republic right now by allowing ourselves to become more polarized and fractured? Is this what we look like on the inside as we allow various vices in to compensate for pain, emptiness, anxiety? I doubt the artist(s) meant it to be so deep but this whimsical Halloween decoration could stand for so much more.

This Halloween, as we stand surrounded by tragic news and uncertainty, I hope that as a nation we can focus on what’s right, what benefits all of us, what will keep us together. Otherwise, if we don’t allow freedom of speech, freedom of expression, liberty, life… if we can’t let our neighbors speak their minds even when we disagree with them… we will lose our heads.

I believe this was the first annual Viking festival in Wilkowski Park. Admission was free but event organizers encouraged attendees to bring donations for the local food banks.

On a windy Sunday my horde and I did go. Upon arrival we found the Evil Frog Totem (or at least we called it that). I suppose it could have been an ancient billboard for a Norse chiropractor as well.

From the main road it looked like there were just a few vendors and a limp bouncy castle (it was inflated later), but amongst the trees were a delightful assortment of vendors and activities.

There were also tents showcasing how our Viking brethren would have lived before we invented IKEA and Marimekko.

What really stood out to me at vendor stalls was the beautiful leather work. I ooed and awed, then a costumed kid walked by yelling, “it’s time to skin the beaver!!” “Was that a game?” I thought. One of my companions replied, “No, look, it’s a dead beaver.” And there the poor beaver was, sprawled on a table, dead as a doornail. Couldn’t do it. Had to move on.

More pieces of beautifully crafted dead animal. I do wear leather; I guess the ancestral genes that influence us to make our own leather escaped me.

And then, the village blacksmith. His work was fascinating to watch. I don’t know how he could stand the heat though. It was hot where we were standing outside the corral. I had to check to be sure I still had eyebrows.

That’s the sound of a man… working on the chain… maAil… Actually, he was making a stabber of some kind. Whether a rapier or marshmallow stick, I don’t know.

Strolling along, I was greeted by Mr. Cute, a very kind dog whose breed or actual name I don’t remember. His owner said he was so calm because he’d been coming to such events his whole life.

Why yes they do.

Marvelous swords and a wiggy hammer. It reminds me of the nursery rhyme in which “they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

This gorgeous horse is Night. He is 27 years young and his person says he’s the mascot for the local senior center.

As I petted Night, this nearby well-coiffed horse said, “Pay attention to me!”

Excitement was brewing around the Ozark Trail (chair).

Here is definitive proof that Vikings engage in commerce with Romans. Also note the 750W massage throne.

Dear Santa: I want one of these for work.

Oops he did it again.

Tools of the trade. When I remarked that I’d like to crawl into this bed in this airy tent and take a nap, its owner said he discourages unauthorized bed use by setting sharp things on it.

The Chicken Man himself hauls a load of fluid-infused projectiles towards the trebuchets.

Catapults? Trebuchets? I’m not entirely sure. But my closest companion and I discussed all the ridiculous things we could use one for. It became readily apparent that we probably shouldn’t have one.

Here was a stone carver from Seattle. I suggested to my group that we could go into business making grave markers and that went over like a lead zeppelin.

A shopping cart with watermelons? Next to a catapult? Yes please.

The Earl and Lady of Kattegat finally occupied their perches to observe the festivities.

Young volunteers were fitted with shields and weapons downrange of the catapults. The one on the left couldn’t have too many shields. Shield wall!!

Note the arrival of the black balloons. They turned out to be more durable than the multicolored water bombs.

3, 2, 1, launch!

The daring crowd of defenders grew.

From my perspective I couldn’t figure out what type of fur this was. It seemed to be a whole animal with very short appendages. I said, “oh no, he killed a giant platypus!” It turned out to be elk, which was more apparent from the front view. This photo presented a paradox; ancient garb versus modern technology.

Whoo hoo!

We learned that most of the fighting had taken place on Saturday. Here two kids got medieval in the round.

This was a great family activity. Some Viking festivals are overtly pagan to the point of being a religious event; that wasn’t our experience. People were friendly, with a local realtor and her precious deaf dog handing out free water at the entrance. They actually talk to strangers in Rainier. I’m more used to Greater Seattle culture in which people don’t say excuse me or use their turn signals and where many people show great discomfort if a stranger speaks to them.

In the restroom a little girl was screaming at her mother that she didn’t want to go to the bathroom. I told her I’d have been spanked if I talked to my mother like that. She did get a swat on her backside. I rarely see parents take control like that in my own biome. Instead they yell at the kids to comply but don’t back up their words, so the kids persist. Score more points for Rainier.

We did have a jaw-droppingly rude experience on the way out. A vendor had the biggest birdcage I’d ever seen for sale. I’d joked that you could put people inside it and then realized that wasn’t funny. But it was great for birds. A family member offered the vendor $20 and he said, “sold!”

Next thing I knew, a short, stout woman in a bright pink shirt was preparing to take away the birdcage. Confused, I asked the vendor, “what just happened?” After he’d told my relative “sold!”, the newcomer had said she’d pay $40 for it. The vendor grinned as he talked about the $40. I was aghast, especially since we were celebrating a birthday. It had happened so quickly that I don’t think I’d heard the woman barge in.

I stood on the sidelines while the woman took the top off the cage and found someone to help her move it. She did not apologize or bat an eyelash. The vendor didn’t either. I should have had the presence of mind to chip in my own $20 and buy it out from under the rude woman, but decided a vendor like that probably doesn’t deserve our business anyway. He probably wasn’t from Rainier.

Overall this was a fun day. I wish we could have left the festival on a more positive note but that was not the festival’s fault. This event will likely grow and I hope more interactive activities occur on both days, not primarily on Saturday. By next year I hope to have my “Straight Outta Asgard” t-shirt or a faux beaver ensemble complete with tooled leather accessories that I didn’t witness being made.

Thank you, Rainier, for using this great event for fun, charity, and education!

“I smell smoke,” the day began, as someone told me of a strong smell outside. “It’s not wood-fired pizza.” We soon learned that a stretch of NE 85th Street was closed because of a fire that destroyed at least a handful of local businesses.

As the day went on the news became “Waldo’s is gone.” Waldo’s was a longtime bar/open mic/dance spot that sat on the southwest of of 128th Avenue NE and NE 85th Street in Kirkland. Waldo’s actually went away eight years ago, but locals still refer to this complex as “the old Waldo’s.”

Online a lot of memories are being shared of what one 2007 Yelp reviewer described as “Headbangers galore! Waldo’s reminds me of a dirty Seattle bar circa 1992… Waldo’s isn’t the place for a date… more like a place to go to people watch or reminisce about where you were when you heard Kurt Cobain was found dead.”

Others talk of meeting their spouses there, celebrating major events, or in my case, my 1994-ish shock at seeing a middle-aged woman in Daisy Dukes with her gingham shirt tied up to show her midriff. Regardless of how good or bad the atmosphere or food was, a lot of local life happened there. Which is why so many are talking about Waldo’s today.

Evidently, about 3 this morning, Kirkland Fire was called out to this building for a two-alarm blaze. Fatima’s Alterations, which has been there for 20 years, is a mess. The dry cleaners is a loss. You can’t even tell a hot tub store was inside. The roof has collapsed, rickety skeletons of walls remain, twisted metal abounds. The smell is like someone put old tires, chimney soot, and sweaty sneakers into a double boiler with a dash of charbroiled laptop computer. I still smell like it.

Responding fire units did an amazing job of knocking this down before anything worse happened. Many workers were onsite cleaning up. This is what teamwork looks like.

You really can’t tell how bad this is until you walk around on the sidewalk and peer in.

A woman who lived blocks down the road described waking up to a horrible stench about 4 this morning. This was why.

The view from 85th. Many cars were slowing down or pulling onto 128th Avenue NE to gape. Strangers asked each other, “Where were you? What happened? Who lost their business? Was it arson?” A dump truck driver slowed down to say, “too bad about Waldo’s.”

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I do know it was an older building that probably didn’t have a more modern means of suppressing fires.

While we reminisce about where Waldo’s was, we should also keep in mind whose livelihoods were there until last night. This fire scene will evolve and those whose businesses survived will adapt. Whether the decimated businesses there can rise again is another question. So let’s coin a hashtag: #RoseHillResilient.